John Tory PC Leader

Toronto - July 31, 2007

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said today a PC government will bring Ontario's health care system out of the dark ages and into the 21st century with a new e-health approach.

"Our health care system needs to stop running on a clunky old Commodore 64 and get into the 21st Century," said Tory. "Technology has changed the way that we do our banking, shopping and many other parts of our lives. There is no excuse for us not using technology to improve patient care in Ontario and better manage health care costs," said Tory.

Tory made the comments during a news conference in Toronto with PC Health Critic Elizabeth Witmer at the offices of the Electronic Children's Health Network (eCHN) in Toronto. eCHN is an organization dedicated to providing electronic solutions that enable children's health care providers who are members to share patient information quickly and easily, instead of relying on archaic paper files, faxes and other methods that leave patients more vulnerable to costly medical mistakes and delays.

A John Tory PC Government will act immediately to bring major technological change to Ontario's health care system. Tory will put e-health records to work for Ontario by taking advantage of federal funding and investing an additional $540 million over the next four years to ensure that each Ontarian has a secure, private lifetime record of their patient history and care by 2014. In addition, Tory will use the information gathered through these records to improve healthcare delivery, forecasting and planning in Ontario.

Since 2002, Ontario's taxpayers have poured $458 million into building electronic health records, and yet Dalton McGuinty has made very little progress in delivering an e-health strategy over his four years in office. According to Canada Health Infoway's planning for 2007-2008, Ontario's anticipated progress for e-health initiatives remains well behind Alberta, BC and PEI. Dalton McGuinty hasn't accessed hundreds of millions in funding that was available federally for e-health.

"It's time that Ontario took advantage of the significant benefits of modern technology to improve patient care and safety, support health care providers and reduce costs in our health care system overall," Tory said. "Leadership Matters and the lack of it has left a paper trail of Ontario's health care system limping along. It's time for us to stop trailing the rest of the country and start being a leader again."